Advertising services

Last updated: September 22, 2014

Adobe offers hosted services as part of the Adobe® Marketing Cloud that give companies tools to provide more relevant advertising on pages you visit on the Internet. These tools also allow a company to provide you more relevant advertising within the emails, text messages, mobile notifications, and direct mail offers it sends you.

How do Adobe advertising services help companies provide relevant advertising?

Adobe's advertising services help companies improve multiple types of advertising. For example, they help companies improve ads connected with social media (like sponsored ads on Facebook), on search results pages (like those on Google or Bing), and across websites (like banner ads on Yahoo!). Adobe’s advertising services also help companies send emails, text messages, direct mail, notifications on mobile devices, and messages within purchase receipts. When a company uses Adobe's advertising services, the company can use Adobe’s tools to collect information about the use of its websites, social media pages, or applications. Some companies may also choose to provide Adobe information it has already collected about you. That company may then use Adobe’s advertising services to determine both which advertising will be more relevant to you and the best way to provide you the advertising (such as via email, banner ad, text message, or direct mail).

What information does Adobe collect on behalf of a company when a company uses Adobe's advertising services?

When a company uses Adobe's advertising services, that company chooses how to implement and utilize Adobe’s tools to determine what type of information to have Adobe collect on its behalf and what information to send to Adobe advertising services.

The following are examples of the type of information these companies may choose to collect:

Where you go and what you do on that company's website, apps, or social media

Your browsing activity, including the URL of the web page you are visiting

The URL of the page that showed the link you clicked on that brought you to that company's website

Your IP address, which Adobe may use to approximate your general location

Information you may provide on that company's website or when interacting with that company within social media, including information on order and registration forms and information tied to your profile on social media accounts

Details relating to the types of products and services you have bought from that company

Ad campaign success rates, such as whether you clicked on a company's ad and whether viewing or clicking on the ad led you to purchase that company's products

Examples of the type of information these companies may provide to Adobe advertising services are:

Email addresses

Phone numbers

Physical addresses

Details relating to the types of products and services you have bought from that company

The information Adobe's advertising services collect and receive on behalf of a company belongs to the company using our services, not to Adobe. Adobe uses this information only as allowed in a contract with the company to provide services to that company. Note that sometimes Adobe has permission from these companies to access and share aggregated information collected by Adobe advertising services with our customers, prospective customers, and partners in order to improve our products and services, to provide reports and market research, and to understand market trends. Aggregated information is anonymous and does not identify individuals. For example, we may publish reports that show which browsers or operating systems are used to access websites of the companies that use our advertising services.

Many Adobe advertising services, such as the services that help companies provide advertising on news articles (like banner ads) or search result pages, are not designed to collect information that identifies you personally.

However, if you either provide a company information that identifies you or interact with a company's social media sites, apps or pages, Adobe advertising services may use that information, on behalf of a company and at its direction, to provide you advertising for that company through social media or other marketing channels like email or text message.

Some companies may also buy or acquire from public sources additional non-personally identifiable information about you, such as your age and gender, and then add that additional information to the information they have instructed Adobe's advertising services to collect. Companies will often do this so they can provide you with more relevant advertising. For information on how a company uses this information, refer to that company's privacy policy (most often found on that company's website or within its mobile app).

How does Adobe collect information on behalf of companies to provide its advertising services to those companies?

Most Adobe advertising services use cookies and similar technologies, such as web beacons (also known as tags or pixels) and embedded scripts, to collect the information described above. Cookies associate the information with your web browser. Web beacons transfer information between cookies and Adobe computers. Unless you have otherwise given your permission to do so, none of the information collected across unaffiliated websites by cookies and web beacons set by Adobe's advertising services will be used by Adobe to personally identify you.

Social media networks you visit may allow a company to send Adobe information about you after you interact with that company’s social media sites, apps or pages. Most social media networks allow you to change your settings regarding how your information is being used. You can learn more about the information social media networks allow companies to collect by reviewing the privacy policy of the social media networks you use.

Adobe may also receive information using technologies developed by mobile operating system providers. For more information about the type of information mobile operating system providers allow companies to collect, please review the privacy practices of your mobile operating system provider.

How do companies use the information collected on their behalf by Adobe advertising services?

In general, companies use the information that they collect through the use of Adobe's advertising services to provide you with more relevant advertising. For example, a company may use this information to:

Identify your likely interests based on your previous browsing activity (for example, you may have an interest in cars or leather handbags) so it can show you more relevant advertising

Place you into segments that it can use to categorize your likely interests (some example segments are Sports Enthusiasts and Frequent Online Shoppers)

What choices do I have about a company's use of Adobe's advertising services?

Most of Adobe's advertising services use cookies to help companies collect the information described above. Most Internet browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser settings to block all cookies or to block just those set by companies other than the one whose website you are visiting (often called "third-party cookies"). If you change the setting in your browser to block cookies, you will block a company's ability to use Adobe's advertising services to provide you relevant content and advertising based on your previous browsing activities. For further information about managing cookies, visit http://iab.net/privacymatters/4.php.

Another way for you to tell us you do not want companies to use Adobe's advertising services to provide you with relevant content and advertising based on your previous browsing activity is to opt out by following the instructions here. If you do opt out, you will no longer receive banner advertising powered by Adobe's advertising services based on your previous browsing activity. You may still receive advertising from companies that use Adobe's advertising services, but they will no longer be based on your previous web browsing activities or likely interests. When you opt out, Adobe will place opt out cookies on your browser. If you delete your cookies, change browsers, or change devices, you will need to repeat this opt-out process. Also, please note that this opt-out process will work only if your browser is set to accept all cookies.

Adobe is a member of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), the European Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA), and the Australian Digital Advertising Alliance (ADAA), and adheres to their self-regulatory principles. More information about these self-regulatory groups and interest-based advertising in general is available on the following sites:

To learn more about how to opt out from receiving commercial email or SMS messages, please review the opt out process specified within the message itself. To learn more or understand how to opt out from receiving mobile notifications, please review the privacy options your mobile device operating system provider offers you.

Does Adobe share any of the information it receives from companies that use Adobe's advertising services?

Adobe does not share this information except as described in the Adobe Privacy Policy or when asked to do so by the company using our services. Please review the privacy policy for the company using Adobe's advertising services to learn about that company's privacy practices.